New Design for Champlain College's Student Merit Pages

Merit, a student information service and website used by Champlain College to publicize its students' accomplishments has unveiled a fresh, interactive format for the new year.

The updated design of the homepage brings heightened attention to a range of Champlain College student stories and achievements, along with featuring student photos and their individual Merit achievement pages. Visit Champlain's Merit Pages network at http://champlain.meritpages.com.

"Student stories, profiles, and a search option are available right at the top of the homepage, making it easy to access primary information right away. This new format makes using and accessing Merit even easier for students," said Stephen Mease, director of public information and news whose department oversees the program.

"Merit is a valuable tool for our traditional undergraduate students to create an academic "LinkedIn" style presence that can play a valuable role in building networks with employers, celebrating their accomplishments and establishing a professional online presence," he added. There are nearly 8,000 past and present Champlain students with a personalized Merit page.

A Merit page is created for each undergraduate student when they enroll at Champlain College, generally right after orientation in September.All students have to do once they receive their first notification email is log on at www.champlain.meritpages.com to "claim" their page, add a photo and include past work and internship information..

One of the strengths of Merit is that it allows students to network with their classmates. Students can even see what their friends from high school are accomplishing at their colleges by adding their high school to their profiles, or by searching achievements being published at other universities that utilize Merit. It is also for family and friends to sign up to "follow" a student and receive notification of news and accomplishments.

In addition, Merit makes it easy for students to share their achievements on social media. Champlain College also uses Merit to notify hometown newspapers, media and even members of Congress from their hometown district about Dean's lists, study abroad and other academic achievements.

A student's Merit page also serves as a professional online resume with achievements verified by the college. Students also have the option to add customized information about work experiences, involvement in clubs and activities, to post Vimeo or Youtube videos and import information directly from Facebook or Linkedin to their Merit pages, which saves them from having to fill out all of their basic profile information directly. Each page has a custom URL for their page.

"All of these elements come together to form a unique, professional online existence, which is invaluable in a world where employers often look to the Internet for information on potential hires," Mease added. "We hope all our students will see this as another service and benefit to help them celebrate their successes at Champlain."

Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 382 Colleges: 2018 Edition. For the third year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2018 "America's Best Colleges," and an "A+ School for B Students" and is ranked in the top 100 Regional Universities of the North. Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2018 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2018 College of Distinction. For more information, visit www.champlain.edu.